


Redemption

by fardareismai



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt, reggae music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 15:25:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18897385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: From the Tumblr prompt "Christopher Eccleston is obsessed with reggae music. Now all I can think of is Nine taking Rose to a Bob Marley concert"





	Redemption

**Author's Note:**

> Getting some of my Tumblr prompts over to AO3

“Come on, Rose!  We’re going to be late!” the Doctor called, knocking on her door for the third time in 15 minutes.

“Time machine,” she called back.  The Doctor regretted ever using that excuse, because now she treated it as carte blanche to take as long as she wanted getting ready.

If he were honest, she didn’t take longer than any of his other companions, not really, but the time without her always  _felt_ longer than it ever had with Tegan or Leela or Barbara.

“We’ve already landed, I can’t go back now or we’ll cause a paradox.  Come on, Rose!”

She threw open the door to her room and the Doctor felt his mouth drop open.

“What are you wearing?”

Rose shrugged her leather-and-cotton-clad shoulders.  “You won’t tell me where and when we are, so I decided to take a leaf out of the expert time-traveler’s book and go with something timeless.”  She grinned cheekily.  “How do I look?”

She was wearing slim-fit black jeans, heavy black boots, a deep purple t-shirt with a v-neck, and a black leather jacket.  She looked like a small, curvy, blonde version of him, but with a prettier face.

The Doctor shook his head.  “You don’t have quite the gravitas to pull it off, but I suppose you’ll do.  Come on then, it’s already started. “

He grabbed her hand and tugged her into the console room and out of the TARDIS, his gleeful smile making him look a decade younger than his apparent age.

They were parked outside some kind of theatre that seemed to buzz with energy and humanity.  They weren’t the last to arrive, but it was clear that whatever was happening was already started, as the Doctor had said.

“We’re in America!” Rose said, catching a glimpse of a flag between two buildings.

“Well spotted,” the Doctor answered, continuing to pull her toward the theatre.  “Pittsburgh, 1980.”

“But… what are we doing here?”  Rose remembered only too well the last time they had been on this side of the Atlantic, three months earlier and thirty-two years later at the same time.  “Doctor,” she said, stopping even as he tried to pull her forward, “did you get a signal of something?”

He turned to look at her and, catching the fear in her eyes, he reached out a hand to brush over her face.  “No, nothing like that, Rose.  This is fun.  Something I’ve always wanted to see, yeah?  I promise- no mad aliens bent on destruction.”

Rose bit her lower lip but nodded and placed her hand back in his to lead her on.  She trusted him, of course she did.  She trusted him more than anything or anyone in the universe.

The Doctor flashed the psychic paper at the harried ticket-taker as they hurried past, pulling her behind him into the crowded, over-warm, loud and smoky concert hall.

“Every ticket for this concert is sold out, but no one will be sitting anyway, so it won’t matter that we don’t have seats,” he murmured, leaning close to her ear to be heard over the din of the people and the beginnings of the music.

He pulled her forward to where they had a good view of the band on the stage, in and among the press of humanity around them.  At centre stage, a black man in denim with thick dreadlocks, a guitar slung low across his hips, and a loose-limbed way of moving was adjusting his microphone.  He started speaking above the din and Rose was surprised to hear a heavy Jamaican accent issue forth.

“Yeaaaah!” he shouted, to increased applause and cheers from the crowd around her.  Even the Doctor added his voice to the din, surprising her a bit.  She clapped with everyone, but could not quite figure out what was going on- why this concert was so important.

“Greetings in the name of his Imperial Majesty, Emperor Haile Selassie!  Jah!  Rastafarai!”

Rose turned to the Doctor who had, somehow, manoeuvred her in front of him, hips pressed against her bum.

“What is this, Doctor?  Who is the band and why is this so important?”

He turned her back around to face the stage and leaned down to her ear to speak.

“That is Bob Marley, with his band The Wailers, and this is the last time he’ll ever be on stage.  He was a major catalyst for change in Jamaica during his life and brought Rastafarianism into the public eye for the first time.”

Rose leaned back into his large, solid frame, as he straightened, and he placed his hands on her hips as the band began to play.

Rose had never been overly fond of reggae music, but in that setting, she could begin to see the point.  The musicians were so obviously passionate, the driving beats didn’t inspire dancing so much as a rhythmic swaying that the entire crowd seemed to take part in, moving like one many-headed entity.

As the concert continued, she began to even enjoy herself.  Perhaps it was the growing, acrid smell of illicit marijuana smoke, or the Doctor’s hands on her hips, gently shifting her hips with his to the beat, or maybe it was just the press of youthful humanity, but Rose began to feel the music in her very bones.

Then the Doctor stopped the vague dancing as a song started.  He stood very still, and held Rose still as Bob Marley sang about freedom and redemption, and Rose heard the singer’s voice crack as he performed.

“He was informed yesterday that his cancer is terminal.  He’ll be dead in about eight months,” the Doctor whispered into her ear.  “He’s not famous now, not really.  This show being sold out?  It’s an anomaly.  He didn’t want to perform tonight, but his band needed the money, so he did.”

Rose’s eyes fill with tears as she looks at the man on stage- lovely, and passionate, and doomed.  She finally knew why they were here- why this odd piece of musical history mattered to the Doctor. 

“ _Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;_

_None but ourselves can free our minds._

_Have no fear for atomic energy,_

_‘Cause none of them can stop the time._

_How long shall they kill our prophets,_

_While we stand aside and look?_

_Some say it’s just a part of it:_

_We’ve got to fulfil the book._

_Won’t you help to sing_

_These songs of freedom_?”

“This is why you travel, right Doctor?” she said, turning in his arms again and rising on her toes to speak in his ear.  “Redemption?”

He looked down at her through the haze of smoke and smiled.  “Yeah.”


End file.
